Machine Head: The Blackening

I never really dug Machine Head… they never clicked with me for some reason. Their latest album, however, clicks like a motherfucker. It’s a marathon march (the shortest track clocks in at 4:46) featuring the full tempo spectrum from the ubiquitous, trudgy breakdown to machine-gun pace guitars and drums. The sound and construct is original, and–at times–quite brutal… yet I cannot claim the album is brutally original. That’s hard to come by these days. Either way, I definitely recommend this album to anyone who likes solid, thrash-inspired metal.